


It Started With Aliens

by sinesofinsanity



Category: Batgirl (Comic), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alien Invasion, Babysitting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinesofinsanity/pseuds/sinesofinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephanie Brown, kick-ass vigilante college student, is called up on an all-points alert to help deal with an alien invasion. Naturally, she gets stuck doing civilian evac, but there are some unexpected civilians. Plenty of Batgirl-Proxy banter, some competent bystanders, exploding spacecraft, and spending Saturday morning babysitting for a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Started With Aliens

**Author's Note:**

> No prompt for this one, rather there was a prompt for "Having to babysit" for another fandom, and a couple of unrelated prompts with Stephanie Brown as Batgirl. My mind put them together and then went to interesting places.
> 
> HUGE thanks to carnivorousgiraffe on dreamwidth for the beta and last minute advice.

It had started with aliens. But then, doesn’t it always? Stephanie Brown, aka Batgirl had gotten the call while studying for an economics midterm, on a rooftop, in costume. Hey, college is all about balancing a girl’s time right?

“Batgirl, you need to get to South Gotham Heritage Museum NOW!”

“Good evening, Proxy.” Book stowed with her civilian clothes behind a vent, she gave her shoulders a stretch, “What’s the rumpus? South side’s a bit out of my jurisdiction.”

“You’re kidding right? This is an all points bulletin! Where have you been all night?”

“Hunh?”

“Oh for- Just LOOK!”

Stephanie looked. The sky over south Gotham was tinged a sickly green, as though someone had doused the horizon with phosphorescent paint. Vague darker shapes faded into and out of existence in the murky clouds, each at least the size of the buildings beneath.

“Why are you still standing there!” Proxy screamed.

“Oh! Right, yeah.” Two minutes and a barely controlled free-fall later, the Ricochet was dodging through the shadowed streets. “Okay Proxy. What am I leaping dangerously into?”

“We’re being invaded. Near as I can tell it’s not a species the US Government’s encountered before.”

“Not that that means much.” Batgirl dodged an SUV traveling north in the south-bound lane. Actually, most of the cars were heading north.

“True, Oracle’s database has no info on them either.”

“She did tend to stick closer to home.”

“Uh huh. From what O’s told me, Superman is off-world as well as at least two Green Lanterns. The shadows you’re seeing above the clouds are ships, three of them. Seemingly unrelated people have been going missing around the world for the past twelve hours, always at the same time that someone reports seeing green clouds. For some reason the ships have stopped over Gotham but no-one’s been reported missing yet.”

“’Bout time we caught a break.” The Ricochet swerved around an ambulance parked next to a car wrapped around a light post. No one else was headed south now.

“In a manner of speaking. O’s co-ordinating the assault on the ships. You’re part of civilian evac.”

“What! Why don’t I get to fight aliens?”

“Oh I’m sorry, can you fly?”

“No.”

“Can you breathe in space?”

“Who can do that?”

“Then you’re on evac BG. Start with the building to the west of the museum. It was hit with some kind of particle beam just before the all-points went out. I’m not sure how long it’ll stay standing.”

The Gotham Museum was at the end of a park, more of a field with a fountain in it, flanked by civic buildings. With Proxy’s direction (and perhaps a little muttering about the kiddie assignment, but only a little) Batgirl freed ten people from the crumbling west building and led them to a group of firefighters at the edge of the invasion zone. She had just handed over the last, an older man with a broken leg, when a deep boom shook the square. The firefighters looked up, more than one clearly terrified; the building she had just evacuated collapsed as the shock-wave reached its foundations.

“Oh my god,” came Proxy’s voice through the earpiece, “Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod…”

“What the-“ Stephanie turned and stared in horror. One of the ships was crashing. Its sheer size made the crash seem to take an eternity. Cylindrical with rounded ends, it was a grid of black panels tinged with green to match the new colour of the sky. Panels broke off and were flung into the air with the force of the crash; Batgirl and the emergency workers braced themselves against the fire truck. As the ship crashed one of the largest panels at the top peeled back to spew hundreds of smaller ships into the air; the aliens were evacuating. Slowly, impossibly slowly, the ship tilted, crushing a building at the opposite end of the park.

“Proxy,” Batgirl stammered through the aftershock. “Was that one empty?”

“Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod…”

“Proxy!” she screamed, “Tell me there was no one in there!”

“Oh go- What? No! N-no not… N- wait… I think… yes… what?”

“Proxy please, I need you here. You’re one of the smartest, bravest people I’ve ever met, don’t freak out on me.”

“What? No that’s not it it’s…” Batgirl kept a hand on the earpiece, ready to interrupt with another motivational speech if needed. Not that she was particularly practiced at motivational speeches, _Don’tbepanicingdon’tbepanicingdon’tbepanicing…_. “Yes the building was empty, but there are people in the spaceship! Repeat, the hostages from earlier are IN THE SPACESHIP!!”

She was running after the first sentence. The impossible ship had finished falling and was now collapsing in on itself. She had to dodge flying debris as she got close.

“How do I get in? Are there-“

“Get down!”

Batgirl ducked, narrowly avoiding being flattened by one of the smaller alien craft as it swept low to the ground. Following its flight back into the Kool-Aid coloured sky, she caught sight of a blue figure fighting its way through the mass of aliens above her. With a start she realized that whoever-it-was was possibly the first superhero she’d seen since the hullaballoo had started. Assuming it was a superhero. _I need a refresher course on who’s on my side._

“Talk me through this P, how do I get inside?”

A side panel almost as big as the fire truck she had just been leaning on fell inwards as the beams supporting it shrieked and twisted. A shadowy hall was revealed beyond the fallen panel.

“That’ll do!” She ran in. Almost instantly the noise of the battle outside was muted, replaced with the creaks, groans, and occasional squeals of the spaceship collapsing in on itself. Heavy beams were bending under a gravity they were never built to be subject to.

“There’re two big heat signatures I can pick up from the satellite feed. The resolution isn’t fine enough to tell which one belongs to our prisoners, but I’m guessing by the bizarre readings the sat’s getting from the one at the bottom of the ship, that’s the power source.”

“So going there would be bad.”

“Unless you like unidentifiable radiation melting your brain.”

“Only on weekends.” An ominous crash echoed through the ship, Batgirl picked up her pace.

“It is the weekend. Keep heading toward the top of the ship, and a bit to your right. Once you get close the suit’s thermal scanners will give us more specific directions.”

Stephanie thanked whoever was listening that the ship had fallen on its side. It meant she didn’t have to climb any staircases to get to the top of the ship. Climbing through doorways was a bit awkward at first but eventually she found what she could only guess was an alien elevator shaft. She had to hunch a bit to keep from knocking her head as she ran, but if no one could see her, she didn’t look stupid. Those were the rules. She overshot once in the elevator shaft, got turned around in the alien hallways once (okay twice, three time max) but finally got close enough for the suit’s thermal sensors to pick up the hostages.

“Oh no.”

A hole, or more accurately, a hallway, led straight down from her feet to a hall lined with cages. The prisoners she could see were standing on what had been the back wall of their cells, but she was certain there would be several on the other side of the hall standing on the prison bars. She gulped. Only three cells were visible from her vantage point, but each held five or six children.

“It’s Batgirl!” A chorus of shouts echoed up the hall, many in languages Stephanie didn’t recognize. She pulled out her grapple and shot it into the opposite wall, now the ceiling. _This could get confusing_ , she thought, landing neatly.

“Is there a wall panel, a padlock, a deadbolt… something to open the door?” Between the prisoners’ shouting and the creaks from the ship, Proxy was barely audible. Batgirl looked around. There was a wall panel on the other wall, which meant above her. She jumped, hooked a leg around a bar of the cell, and ripped the cover off the panel. A couple of prisoners, this cage seemed to hold all adults, tried to reach out to hold her up, but she was leaning so far in order to get to the panel there wasn’t much they could do.

“Okay,” Proxy had her tech-master voice on, “We need to figure out which wires to re-route to open those doors.”

A crash rocked the alien vessel, nearly shaking Batgirl from her perch, “There’s no time for that!” Closing her eyes she plunged her hand into the tangle of wires and blindly pulled.

Three things happened at once: someone farther down the hall screamed, Proxy shouted “Batgirl NO!” and the ship shook harder than ever, knocking her leg loose and leaving her hanging from the wires she had just unplugged.

“Are you crazy? Those wires could do ANYTHING! You could have trapped them in there forever.”

“I’m fine thanks.” With a grunt she pulled herself up and back into the perch she had before. Her shoulder burned, something was probably torn. Once she was semi-stable, she looked to the source of the scream. It appeared her potentially-tragic plan had worked. Two of the cells on the upper side of the hallway had fallen open when unlocked, dropping their occupants onto the cells below. A burqa-clad woman was comforting a boy who couldn’t be more than five, while three pre-teens and a heavily bearded man tried to open other doors.

“Point: Batgirl.” She reached into the panel to pull more wires.

“Wait! We need to figure out why that worked! You still could trap them. Or blow something up!”

“Still. Don’t’. Have. Time!” each word was punctuated by another yank. More cages fell open, but now the occupants were ready, for the most part dropping one at a time or helping each other down. Cells on the other wall/floor started to open too. The bearded man fell backwards as the door he was pulling suddenly gave way.

“Excuse me, Miss?” A blond man asked, heavily accented.

“Yeah?” She yanked another wire, the lights flickered. _Correlation does not imply causation_ , her inner monologue reasoned as she reached for another handful.

“How do we get out of here?”

“Uh,” The cage she was hooked into opened. She flailed for a moment without the leg support until one of the men from that cell grabbed her, positioning her knees on his shoulders.

“Thanks!”

“Da.”

“Miss?” the accented man again, “How did you get here?”

She shook her head, reaching for more wires. She could work with two hands now. “You don’t want to go that way. A good chunk of it collapsed behind me. Proxy?”

“Now you’ll listen to me?”

“Time limit! What are our escape options? Doors? Windows? Hatches?”

“Why would a spaceship have windows?”

“I don’t know! What about that big opening the little ships flew out of?”

“Didn’t you come in that way?” A young girl, maybe nine or ten with black hair and a pink sweater, stepped up, watching Stephanie critically.

“Uh, no?”

“Well why not?” With her hands on her hips, the kid was quickly morphing into a shortened version of Stephanie’s sixth grade teacher.

“I had uh, Superhero-y stuff to do? “ She checked the panel again, two doors were still locked, but there were at least fifty wires left. She grabbed another handful.

The young girl scoffed (Shouldn’t there be an age requirement for that?) walked past Batgirl and the accented man, climbed over a door farther down the hall and pointed down a partially caved in stairwell. “Through there, then turn left, which I guess is down, then another left, which I think is down-er? Then a great big door, and that’s where the little ships are.”

Batgirl blinked, “Remind me to quip at you later. You two-,“ she tossed her flare gun and a handful of electro-rangs at the accented man and a dark skinned woman in a suit, “-take the lead. Stay with Sherlock there. You see any aliens shoot them and scream; I’ll catch up. GO! Everyone else, follow them! I’ll be behind you. Go! Go! GO!”

The little girl bit her lip, but ran when accent-man grabbed her hand. The rest of the group followed. Batgirl pulled the final wire, leapt from the man’s shoulders, and started pulling the last few kids out of their cells.

“Run!”

The groans and crashes had been getting louder since she found the prisoners, now dust and debris were raining on them as they ran and clambered their way to the ship dock. When they arrived she nearly collided with the crowd. They had stopped at the edge of the ship.

“What are you DOING?” She forced her way to the front, “Why aren't you running for your lives?”

Silently, the woman she’d given her electro-rangs to pointed out at the field.

“Crap.” The field was littered with debris of alien ships, most of them still aflame. As she watched, two more crashed down, one remaining mostly intact until it hit the ground in a ball of smoke and fire. Above the field, a battle waged, alien ships darting back and forth, firing seemingly at random and occasionally being shot down by the National Guard who had set up tanks by the remains of the building Batgirl had evacuated nearly half an hour ago. The majority of the aliens however were swarming something not too far above Batgirl’s crowd of former hostages. Suddenly a blue figure shot up out of the crowd. It got off a couple of shots, each one turning a ship into another flaming ball of wreckage, before it was once again closed off from view by the swarm trying to tear it apart. Stephanie could barely take her eyes away, the entire time the figure had been visible its mouth had been open, screaming, though it couldn't be heard over the battlefield around it.

The girl in pink could be heard just fine. “NOOO!!!” she screamed.

That snapped Batgirl out of her panic “P. I need-“

“ I've already got a General, or possibly a Colonel, on the line. If you can get the civies to the tanks, the National Guard’ll take it from there. They’ll give you what cover they can but he said they’re spread pretty thin.”

“ ‘s why I don’t deal with Generals.” she glanced around, looking for options. Several of the children were crying.

“Could be a Captain.”

“Not helping.” Another fireball crashed down, hitting the side of the larger ship. She swallowed and jumped up onto something that with luck was finished exploding, “Listen up!” Most of the civilians looked at her, it would have to do. “Those guys in the tanks? They’re the good guys. All we have to do is get there and they’ll look after you, get you back home to your families. I know it’s a lot to ask, but we need to run for it. This spot’s only going to get more dangerous, and we can’t go back where we came.” As if to emphasize her point, a small ship skimmed over the crowd into the hangar behind them, trailing smoke. It crashed into a back wall, which collapsed, burying it completely. She started grabbing hands, “Every adult, stick with at least one kid. Wait for my signal.” Anyone who hadn't understood her words got the message as she started matching them up. She jumped onto her pedestal again and watched for the blue figure in the sky. As soon as it was visible, she waved frantically and made a chopping motion toward the row of tanks. Whoever-it-was seemed to get the message, spun in the air and took off, leading the battle away from the tanks and civilians.

“Now!! Run! Gogogo!” She jumped down and shoved at the people in front. They took off. She tried to stay with the crowd, lead them, watch for stragglers, and watch for flying debris all at the same time, but was forced to give up when a misstep into a rut sent her sprawling. _I’ll come back for everyone._ She promised silently, and ran along with the crowd. There was a boom, a shriek, and then a ship crashed to their immediate left. She dove-tackled a pair of nearly-teen boys to push them out of way of the resulting fireball, earning herself a patch of singed hair and a sharp pain across her back.

“Batgirl!” Proxy must have finished speaking with the General. Corporal. Whatever.

“I’m gonna need a new suit” she groaned.

“What was that?” this voice was new. She looked up; one of the soldiers was offering his hand. She took it. “Anyone left out there?”

She scanned the motley group being escorted behind the tanks by soldiers. She couldn't be sure of faces, but there were definitely fewer than before. She felt sick. “Yeah.”

The soldier scanned her face, concerned. “Maybe you should go sit down, we've got this.”

She shook her head, “No, they’re counting on me.” She turned and ran, not even checking to see if he followed her. Although she really, really, hoped he did, him and a squad or two. That would be helpful.

The run back to the ship was a bit of a blur. She passed the woman in the burqa, now carrying an unconscious child with an ugly burn on his arm. She helped up a few people who had fallen, and pointed them at the tanks, one child had been abandoned by his adult and was just standing still, screaming his head off. She picked him up and passed him to the first soldier she could find. At some point she helped a teenager and a young girl who could only be siblings pull the bearded man from beneath a chunk of spaceship. He was in too much pain to walk, but the teenager nodded when Batgirl asked if they could carry him, so she ran on.

Finally she reached the ship. The only one left was the clever girl with black hair and pink sweater. She didn't seem to notice the chaos around her, only watched the battle above with fierce intensity. Batgirl looked up. Blue had somehow been chased back toward the larger ship. The aliens had a new strategy to deal with the hero as well. Rather than swarming all at once, they had formed a loose circle, constantly shifting to avoid the blue weapons fire, and taking turns diving at whoever-it-was from behind.

“Hey!”

The kid blinked and stared at Batgirl as if she couldn't quite believe what was going on but knew it was terrifying. Or maybe that’s how Batgirl was feeling. Regardless, she grabbed the kid around the waist and started running.

“No!” the girl squirmed. _Man oh man!_ The kid was the reigning queen of squirming. “Escarabajo!”

“Fine!” Batgirl stopped and put the girl down, “Are you going to run on your own then?”

The girl stared at the sky. There was a boom and Batgirl glanced behind and up. One of the aliens had scored a hit on Blue. What looked like blood was dripping from one leg. She turned back to the kid.

“I am in too much pain to run with you kicking me. Are you going to run or not?”

The girl paled, visibly swallowed and nodded, “Yes.” Suddenly she was off like a shot toward the tanks.

Batgirl grumbled something that most definitely was not “damn kids” and followed. Her back felt burned anew with each step, her ankle was aching from tripping on it earlier, her shoulder was throbbing, and taking deep breaths was much more difficult than it should have been.

They’d nearly made it when everything went to hell. More than it already had. A group of alien ships peeled off from the main bunch and started firing rapidly on the nearest tank. Batgirl grabbed the girl and pulled her close, curling into a ball to be less of a target. The tank fired at the ships, but they were too close and moving too fast for the targeting equipment on board. A couple of soldiers ran out and fired on the ships, one of them narrowly missing Batgirl herself. She dove to the side, pulling the kid with her.

“Watch it!” She shouted, “We’re friendlies here!”

The aliens circled back to fire again. She heard them in time and rolled, dragging the kid behind a shell of an alien craft, thankfully burnt out.

A blue beam hit one of the ships firing on the tank. It exploded with more smoke than fire, obscuring the view directly above the two girls and the soldiers for a few agonizing seconds. Shots continued to rain down and echoed above, punctuated by the odd boom or crash.

Suddenly, the blue figure ripped through the smoke and crashed face up into the ground, leaving a short trench of torn up dirt in the wake of its landing.

“NOOO!!!” the kid screamed. Batgirl scrambled for a better hold and received a kick in the chin for her efforts. “JAIME!!!!!”

Hi-may? Batgirl struggled up and followed. One of the soldiers shouted, pointing at the aliens who were on their way back. The tank and soldiers opened fire. Batgirl leapt and covered the kid, getting her first clear look at the Blue Beetle in the process.

“Double crap.”

Keeping her body between the girl and the aliens, she grabbed hold of the carapace? Exoskeleton? Bug-suit and started dragging him toward the tank. One of the soldiers shouted just as the kid started screaming. Batgirl dropped, pulling the kid below her and ending up behind Blue as the aliens started firing.

“Sorrysorrysorrrysorrysorrysorry…” she muttered. The aliens were mostly aiming at the tank, apparently having decided their insectoid foe was toast. Still, a few shots came their way. Most bounced off Beetle’s armour, two grazed Batgirl’s arm. “I’m definitely going to need a new suit.” As soon as the shots let up she pulled the Beetle and young girl behind the tank. Exhausted she collapsed against the caterpillar tread.

The girl knelt by Blue Beetle’s face and shook his shoulder. “Please wake up. Please, please wake up.”

“Uh, Proxy?”

“Are you allergic to your comm?” Ouch. So maybe Stephanie had ignored the last few requests to get to safety or confirm her sanity. There was probably a concussion to blame.

“Uh, sorry? Can we get an ID? What’s bad enough to take out the Blue Beetle?”

“The Blue Beetle? Are you serious? From what I hear that kid took on Guy Gardener and won.”

“Great, I’ll pass that around the superhero water cooler. Now I need something I can use.”

“Give me a minute.” The tank boomed behind them.

Batgirl sagged. She needed sleep and painkillers. Preferably lots of painkillers. The sound of running footsteps made her look up.

“Ma’am you can’t stay here.” A soldier, she didn't know enough about the patches to tell what rank, “Those guys aren't letting up. We can hold for a while but if more come out of the other ships…”

“I know it’s just…” she trailed off, gesturing at the girl and Blue. “I think they’re related.”

“Please Jaime, please. We need you.” One of Beetle’s hands shifted.

“BG I think-“

“Hang on a sec Proxy.” She jumped up, ignoring the fresh stab of pain it sent through her back, “Did you see that?”

“Jaime?” The young girl grabbed at his hand.

The Blue Beetle groaned and turned his head toward her

“He’s waking up!” Batgirl felt like cheering, well actually that would be a really bad idea, maybe an internal cheer. She turned to the soldier, who just looked confused, “He’s waking up!” she repeated.

“Are you there?” asked the kid, not quite as excited as Batgirl yet.

“Si,” His eyes opened, distracted for a moment, then settled on the girl holding his hand, “Hey Mi-“ his breath caught in his throat as he caught sight of Stephanie grinning at him. He choked and struggled to sit up “Wh-who-?”

The kid _Mi?_ flapped a hand dismissively, “That’s just Batgirl. She’s okay.”

Beetle shook his head, pulling up into a seated position. “Seriously Milagro? How do you get to meet superheroes before I do?” Instead of answering, Milagro just hug-tackled him.

 _Oh yeah, who called it?_ “Knew they were related.”

“Sorry to break up the moment,” called the soldier between rounds, the aliens hadn't let up fire just because they couldn't hit a particularly plucky heroine in her hiding place, “But we’re drowning here. Any chance you’re up for helping us out.”

Blue Beetle’s eyes widened at being addressed by the woman with the machine gun. Batgirl guessed he hadn't seen her in his initial sweep upon waking. “Uh right, uh, how am I doing? That bad? Oh, that good. Okay I can work with that. I- wait, what?” He looked up, thoughtful. Milagro didn't look confused, so maybe this was a thing? Like, a non-crazy thing? Or was that how Batgirl looked when she talked to Proxy? “Well that changes things. We’ll have to- No we won’t. Just wait!” He turned to Milagro, “I have to go. Stay with Batgirl. Do whatever she says and don’t leave her sight, understand?”

Milagro turned to look up at Stephanie, considered her for a moment, then turned back to Blue Beetle. “Okay, but I get to tell Mom you handed me over to someone you’d never met.”

Beetle growled, “You do that, and I’ll tell her you stayed in a warzone instead of running to safety like you were supposed to.”

“No fair.”

“Wait just a minute, what’s going on here?” Batgirl was sure she was missing out on something only siblings understood.

He stood, he was about an inch and a half shorter than her, “I need you to look after Milagro until I get back. Keep her safe. Keep her out of” he waved vaguely, “this.”

“But-“

“You’re injured. You have second degree burns on your back that will become infected if untreated too much longer, your ankle’s sprained, you have two cracked ribs, and several torn ligaments. You’re out of this fight and I-“ he paused, looking into the middle distance again, “I really need to go. I just need to know she’s safe. Please” Their eyes met. He was pleading with her. It caught her off guard.

“I- yeah. Yes. I will.”

He smiled, “Thanks,” and took off, literally.

“And I kicked you in the chin,” added Milagro helpfully.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the night was a mess of being yelled at and grumbling in reply. Soldiers yelling until the girls got off the field, emergency workers yelling at them to comply to the order of the almighty triage, a paramedic yelling at why Stephanie hadn’t had her back looked at sooner and why in god’s name had she run on a sprained ankle? Proxy did a bit of yelling about being ignored for good measure, but her skills had been recruited to helping Gotham’s finest find out where the hostages belonged, subtly of course, so there wasn't as much yelling from that front.

At some point word came through that the ground level fight was over, the heroes had pushed the battle to the upper atmosphere to limit civilian casualties. Batman and Robin had apparently hijacked the flagship (the medium sized one, go figure) and were aiming to get both remaining ships as far above Earth as possible. Stephanie spared a moment to grumble about the Demon-child getting the cool job while her ankle was bandaged up. The paramedic gave her an odd look, but seemed to shrug it off as one of those things girls who showed up in purple underwear would say. She had shucked and stashed the more recognizable parts of the Bat-suit before heading to triage.

Around one am Milagro fell asleep. Mrs. Brown would be working all night with the panic gripping the city, so Stephanie declined a trip to the hospital and brought Milagro home with her.

 _Which_ , her inner monologue concluded, _is how I ended up being woken up from sleeping on the couch by a nine-year-old who’s stealing my clothes_. To be fair, Milagro had asked to use the dress. At some point. Probably while Stephanie was still asleep. And it was true that the old pink dress was serving a much more productive use as a magical-superhero-princess costume than it had ever done as “Sunday clothes”.

“Are you a fun superhero, or an angsty one like my brother?” How did she even know the word angsty?

“I am definitely a fun superhero.” Stephanie stretched, wincing as the motion disturbed the bandages on her back. “You want some waffles?”


End file.
